Gaijin Cowgirl (1): The club

Tokyo hid its secrets; it didn’t wear its exploits of greed and power on its bloody sleeve.

Hisakata no
Hikari nodokeki
Haru no hi ni
Shizu-gokoro naku
Hana no chiruran

In the peaceful light
Of the ever-shining sun
In the days of spring,
Why do the cherry’s new-blown blooms
Scatter like restless thoughts?

–From the Ogura Kyakunin Isshu anthology, compiled in the 1300s by Teika

TOKYO
MARCH 2001

Tokyo hid its secrets; it didn’t wear its exploits of greed and power on its bloody sleeve. There was no Coliseum, no monument to mayhem left for tourists to crawl over. There was nothing but one vista upon another of the banal: faceless office buildings and dainty side streets lined by silent apartment blocks. The buildings were gray and brown, bisected by cinderblock overpasses coagulated with traffic; trains crossed over highways with dull efficiency, commuters’ faces pressed to the glass.

At night the city came alive with the faint scent of violence. Rude men emerged from black Mercedes with tinted windows, looking for excuses to throw a punch. But if the guns were kept hidden beneath their belts, the police did not interfere. Vice was plentiful and obvious; but secrets?

In Ikebukuro, one of Tokyo’s many clusters of neon-lit ribaldry, a Benz with four passengers turned away from the well-lit avenues onto a dense, dark street. It cruised past skinny thugs with peroxide hair and shiny suits; working girls in fur coats and halter tops who shifted their feet against the cold; a hunched Korean woman offering “massa-ji” to any man who walked past.

The Mercedes came to rest in front of an unremarkable office building, where illuminated signs announced a barbecue restaurant, a British-style pub, a piano bar and, in the basement, a club called Cowboy. This last sign was a long white marquee with a black pointillist silhouette of a woman naked save for a cowboy hat she held on her head with one hand, the other hand resting on her out-swung hip; the sign maker had suggestively darkened the slight curve just where her legs met.

Electronic music thumped from the basement, shattering the quiet of a winter night. The entrance was guarded not by loitering youths but by two large bouncers in black suit and tie.

The four businessmen emerged from the Benz and headed downstairs into the music. Midnight was just an hour away.

The general manager went first, followed by the vice president and two junior men carrying briefcases. They walked past another set of frowning bouncers to the warmth of Mama-san’s welcoming smile, one tooth crooked endearingly. She bowed low and the general manager replied with a curt nod as she exclaimed upon the honor he bestowed by visiting her humble establishment – the usual protocol.

The club was big and silver and luminous. Deep cushioned seats surrounded the low-set black lacquered tables. Colored lights sliced across the dance floor. The whole place looked like it was about to launch into space.

A long semicircle of glass panes bisected the club. To one side, VIP karaoke rooms, shrouded in black curtains. To the other, a long U-shaped bar, behind which rose a glowing glass menagerie of every kind of alcohol known to man.

The girls came in two categories. The less pretty, less educated ones wore high heels, cut-off blue jeans revealing an inch of ass, and white-and-red checked shirts with the shirttails tied in a knot above the bellybutton and the top few buttons left free. They wore red bandannas and white cowboy hats. These girls worked behind the bar and served drinks.

The hostesses made up the second category, and like the bar’s finest whisky, they were top-shelf. And not just because their cocktail dresses slit to the hip, or because of the tilt of their wrist as they poured a man a drink. They made customers fall in love, not mere lust, and that required skill.

Mama-san led the four businessmen into a VIP room, already reserved, where the men settled into a circle of cushions around a clean black table. She made the correct inquiries. Japanese or foreign? Tall or short, slim or busty? The matron had hardly departed and a cowgirl taken their drinks orders before she returned with eight hostesses in tow. The general manager invited the vice president to indicate whether he would like to have a particular girl sit beside him.

The vice president squinted from behind his thick square glasses. He liked what he saw, very much. Six were Japanese ladies, and two were gaijin. The vice president recalled his trip to Macau two years ago and the hookers from Vladivostok hanging out in the casino parking lots. Gorgeous, tall blondes. He pointed to one now.

Val responded with a pleasing, bright smile. She was not Russian, however. She was a rarity most prized in expensive Tokyo nightclubs: she was American.

Valerie Benson hid her disappointment as she lit the vice president’s cigarette and poured him a whisky from the table. These were first-time clients, and Val wanted to keep herself available in case the Painter asked to see her. In the past, she would have thought hard about pleasing these new customers, because she never knew when one turned out to be rich and frivolous. She could tease thousands of dollars out of men like that. It could be a lot of fun.

But not tonight – she wasn’t thinking about new customers, just one old but surprisingly lively man.

The vice president told her in halting English how pretty she was; she checked her watch. The Painter didn’t stay out late and would probably have called by now. Reluctantly Val acknowledged her number-one tipper wouldn’t be coming this evening, and she summoned the will to concentrate on her present company.

Suki sat on the general manager’s lap. Her hair, dyed a brilliant platinum, suggested a personality more maverick than the pliant giggling hostess that she played for him now. “He’s not coming?” she asked Val in English, pulling one of his hands back along her thigh, towards the safety of her knee.

“I doubt it.”

“I thought he said he would come tonight,” Suki said in a convincing American accent. “He usually keeps his appointments.”

Val shrugged and undid the vice president’s tie. She would get drunk with this client instead. They would sing and hold each other and toast and toast, and pretend to fall in love with each other, and she would receive a tip in exchange for chaste kisses and promises to allow him to take her to a very expensive dinner sometime, and then around two or three o’clock she and her girlfriends, still wired, would go to a disco they liked and dance for an hour or two, and she would finally make her way back to the quiet of Charlie’s orderly flat in time for dawn.

Val and the vice president appraised one another openly. She knew the image to project: a delicate, beautiful shell. She was tall – not a Valkyrie like some of the Russians, but taller than him. She had a swan neck, a small but certain chin and a pert nose that she knew he rather liked. High cheekbones, sassy eyebrows, wide brown eyes – how many times had she been asked why they weren’t blue?

Val barely spoke a word of Japanese, but she had quickly learned what mannerisms could win over her clients. She kept their cigarettes lit and their tumblers full. She drank with a ferocity she had learned would elicit compliments. She knew exactly when to casually massage his shoulder with one hand. When to listen, how far to push the limits of their mutual incomprehension: she didn’t need to understand his drunkard’s jokes, she just had to giggle.

She was, however, a terrible singer. The general manager initiated the karaoke session with “Onna no Michi” – Not that one, again, the hostesses were all thinking. The rest of the party marked its completion with applause. Then Val selected her own 70s warhorse, “Hotel California” by the Eagles. Everyone joined in on the chorus and laughed when she stumbled on the high notes.

But the client was not disappointed; Val knew that he’d expect a foreigner wouldn’t sing with the same heart as a Japanese. She compensated for her charming gaffe by dancing with him. The client led Val around the room as her Japanese friend, the unnatural platinum blonde, crooned a contemporary J-Pop song. Val’s waist was supple in one aged hand; her naked back was smooth against his wrinkled fingers. He moved up to caress her neck and enjoyed the tickles of errant blonde hair. He inhaled her perfume: chrysanthemums, which she had carefully chosen for its correct scent. He closed his eyes and she pressed herself to him. The client was not a bad dancer and she said so, and he seemed satisfied at having impressed this wild gaijin woman.

Val planted a lingering wet kiss on his cheek, and he growled in approval.

Emphasizing each word, she said, “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

The vice president was a fun guy, knew how to move a girl just right on a dance floor, and he held his liquor. Even just a few nights ago, she would have been enjoying this.

Val emerged from the stall and rested her hands against the bathroom counter, staring at her face as it relaxed from sweetly attentive to a haggard disinterest. Tonight it didn’t feel like fun. Tonight it felt like work, and not only because the Painter had blown her out. No, the phone call from the embassy had jarred her. Daddy was here; Tokyo, population 30 million, was suddenly a small town.

Before straightening her makeup, she opened her purse and plucked a Virginia Slims from a delicate silver case. She exhaled gratefully and felt an inch steadier on her heels.

A stall door banged open and another of the foreign girls came out – Ute from Hamburg. She was sniffing and rubbing her nose.

“You’ve got some on your knuckles,” Val said.

Ute nodded her thanks and licked it away. “You want some?”

“No thanks, not tonight.” Truth is, she did want some, just a quick line to get her going again. But she had made a recent decision to cut it out. Val was paying the price now – Jesus, look at her, what a mess; she hastily began re-applying eyeliner – but she didn’t want to end up like girls like Fräuline Ute, whose little trips to perk herself up in the toilet were becoming more than occasional.

Val put the makeup back in her purse and glanced at herself. People who knew her from the States said she had her mom’s looks but her father’s, um, stubbornness. “You mean I’m a bitch,” she would reply. “I’ve got my reasons.”

She drank cold water and followed Ute out to the grinding noise of the club, where the dance floor had cleared so the audience focused on the stage.

A mechanical bull had risen from beneath the dance floor. The DJ played a version of Pete Seeger’s “Home on the Range” set to a disco beat. One of the cowgirls, a stocky girl from up north, shrugged off her shirt and straddled the wiggling contraption. Her white boobs bounced everywhere and she let out a delighted squeal. The businessmen roared with approval.

Now it was the turn of volunteers from the audience. A party up front, six middle-aged salarymen: one of its younger members loosened his tie and climbed on the bull. The machine was at its easiest setting, but nonetheless the young man clung to it for dear life as his colleagues and their new hostess acquaintances cheered and howled with laughter.

Tomorrow morning these guys would bow solemnly to each other and beaver away at their paper-ensconced desks, displaying the sober discipline of a crack military drill team. But boozy nights like these, in the company of ladies like Val, it was anything goes.

She walked to the bar. “Any messages?”

The cowgirl tending bar shook her head.

Just as well. The only thing worse than not getting a message from the Painter would be to ignore it.

Val returned to the VIP room and switched on her smile. She glided over to the vice president and put her arm around him. He was a tough guy, not pudgy or soft like a lot of men his age. This guy ran every day, she reckoned. His buddies laughed at his jokes, too; he had a personality. She started to like him again.

She exchanged sympathetic smiles with Suki, who had to work harder to enjoy herself as the general manager, too drunk for rhythm, wobbled her around the VIP room. The vice president led her to the door, curious to watch the action outside.

The bull-riding posse of businessmen had elevated their leader onto the floor. Going on seventy, he tottered toward the machine. Two now-topless girls were ready with a stool to help him mount. He was obviously drunk and had no idea what he was doing. His limbs shook. He probably didn’t want to be there but his jaw was resolved to show the young whippersnappers what was what. He nearly fell off as soon as the machine bucked, prompting a withering hail of laughter from the room. One of the girls hopped up behind him, wrapping her fleshy arms around his skinny frame.

For about thirty seconds they rode the machine, the girl waving her cowboy hat in glee, the man’s face transfixed with a goofy grin. He nearly fainted at the end and had to be lifted down. The girls steadied him and gently led him back to his comrades.

His men were bowing deeply. Everyone in the club, in fact, was applauding. He was a lousy bull rider, this old man, but they respected his guts. Fellow could have killed himself on that thing. The old man now sat contentedly on the cushions, both arms around cooing hostesses. A cowgirl brought him a complimentary cognac.

“He was wonderful!” Val said, knowing it was what men liked to hear.

“He very brave,” said the vice president with approval. “I think you try.”

She responded with a laugh. “Oh, you know I could never do that.”

“You American girl. You can do.”

Val gave him a sly look. “Well, perhaps if you come back one evening…I will. Now, would you be so kind as to buy a lady another drink?”

The four businessmen left a little after two o’clock. The bill had been large, the tip suitable. The club had another hour to go. Val and the vice president had exchanged business cards. He would be delighted to take her out for an outrageously expensive meal. She would be very pleased to accept.

Val was relieved the men did not want to continue partying. They were very drunk and headed in different directions – for home, for food, maybe for a nearby capsule hotel.

Val sat in the VIP lounge, smoking. Suki joined her with a glass of white wine. Sometimes her eyes were blue, at others violet or green. But the smoke had irritated her, so she had removed her contact lenses: back to brown.

“Val, you look sick,” she said. “You okay?”

Val nodded absently. “Yeah, thanks.” She inhaled another drag. “I can’t believe the Painter blew me out.”

Suki rolled her eyes. “He’ll come for you.”

“It’s been almost two weeks. It’s a lot of money, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. But in a way….” She lapsed into silence. “It’s just that in a way I’m glad he hasn’t called you. Because of all those stories.”

“That’s just gossip what people say about him. It can’t all be true. Well, he’s sweet enough to me.”

“He doesn’t paint landscapes and flowers.”

“So an old man likes to paint nudes. He’s harmless, and eighty, and I need the money. Suki, I gotta get out of here.”

Suki went over and embraced her. “You just need a break.”

“No, I need to leave.”

“It’s just that I don’t want you to.”

Val hugged her back. “Yeah, I know. But do you see Ute?”

They looked through the glass at a disheveled form practically humping a man her father’s age on the dance floor. Ute had another hour or so to go before she’d crash. Both Val and Suki had struggled on previous nights to get the German’s near-comatose body home.

Val crushed her cigarette in a crystal ashtray. “I don’t want to end up like that. If the Painter wants to pay me a whack of dough to make a portrait of me in my birthday suit, well, that’s just fine by me.”

Val didn’t care about Ute; she knew how to handle herself. It wasn’t just the club she needed to quit. But she hadn’t worked out an escape yet; the embassy’s message had come so suddenly.

The telephone by the door beeped. Suki picked it up. “Moshi moshi.” She listened, nodded. “Hai.” She handed it to Val. “For you.”

Mama-san was on the other end. “Come to the office,” she said.

“Okay, weird,” Val said. “Keep me company.”

Val and Suki passed the bar and entered Mama-san’s office, a small, unadorned space, as functional as the club outside was opulent – it was where she kept the accounts. There were two TVs, one a closed-circuit screen covering the bodyguards by the entrance, the other a regular television. Mama-san sat behind her desk smoking a cigar with her feet up. When away from clients she would revert from being Mama-san to being like a man; a life in the industry had beaten the politeness out of her.

She was watching the local news. The volume was off, so Val couldn’t make out what the announcer was saying. But the image shocked her: an elderly man with a trim white mustache and pointed goatee, wearing circular gold-framed glasses. Three middle-aged men in dark suits stood behind him, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses, their expressions blank. But the old man was anything but inscrutable: he blazed indignation and spat words at the camera, while Japanese script crawled along the bottom of the newscast.

No mistake, it was the Painter.

“What’s he saying?” Val demanded. “What’s going on?”

“He is telling reporter no dishonorable conduct,” said Mama-san. “The reporter asks questions from long, long time ago. From the war.” She twisted her mouth around her cigar. “This is very unusual.”

The Painter retreated into his house. The frowning suits blocked the camera with outstretched palms. The cameras retreated, the image cut out. The anchorman’s calm face returned to the screen.

“I don’t get it,” Val said.

“Don’t count on your VIP coming back,” Mama-san warned. She shook her head. “Why that crazy reporter thinks we care, I don’t know. He is good customer.” She exhaled a perfect ring of smoke. “Why make trouble? It’s all in the past.”

(Next chapter.)

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hi! I’m serializing GAIJIN COWGIRL. If you’re new to Dark & Stormy, please subscribe so you don’t miss a chapter.